In his work, Johan Clarysse seizes upon the tradition of figuration to question the status of the image and how it functions today. In this he is not alone on the Belgian art scene. Gradually, he has managed to acquire his own place with an intriguing oeuvre full of double meanings and references, in which poetry and irony, intensity and distance enter into a surprising alliance. The works Clarysse presents here come from series from the last four years with the titles: ‘Les charmes discrets du pouvoir’, ‘To be guilty or innocent, that isn’t the question’ and ‘Suspicious meetings’. In them, concepts such as identity formation, communication and non-communication and the complexity of our human drives and desires play a key role. In each case, the paintings are intended to be ‘enigmatic in a clear way’. They attract and confuse, they reveal and conceal. As he paints, he disrupts and intensifies the world.
